Esther Randolph

Esther Randolph was an Assistant US Attorney and one of the people presiding over the 1921 electoral fraud case against Atlantic County Treasurer Enoch Thompson.

Biography
Esther Randolph was born in California, and she graduated from the University of Southern California with a law degree. Randolph worked as a public defender for ten years, representing prostitutes and World War I draft dodgers. Governor William Stephens was impressed by her, and he made her an Assistant US Attorney. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty appointed Randolph to prosecute Atlantic County Treasurer Enoch Thompson for electoral fraud after Senator Walter Edge applied political pressure on Daugherty, as he was rivals with Thompson. Randolph moved into the Atlantic City post office with agent Clifford Lathrop, her secret lover, and she zealously pursued the conviction of Thompson for the crimes of murder (the killing of Hans Schroeder), ordering his aldermen to engage in graft, prostitution, and electoral fraud (including voter intimidation) during the 1920 mayoral election). Randolph built a case with the assistance of several Atlantic City aldermen, Bureau of Prohibition agent Nelson Van Alden, and Sheriff Eli Thompson, among other enemies of Thompson, but her case was disrupted when criminal Jimmy Darmody murdered Jim Neary and when Thompson's lawyer Bill Fallon revealed that Van Alden was a murderer. Randolph was forced to give up the case to Fallon, and the indictment was called a mistrial.